Bush Leads Memorial in Houston for Seven Columbia Astronauts

HOUSTON, Feb. 4 - President Bush hailed the astronauts of the space shuttle Columbia today as seven lost explorers of great daring and purpose, then declared that America's only course in the face of the tragedy was to push forward in the conquest of space.

``The cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we chose,'' Mr. Bush told an audience of thousands at an emotional outdoor ceremony under brilliant blue skies at the Johnson Space Center here.

``It is a desire written in the human heart,'' Mr. Bush said. ``We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation. We find the best among us, send them forth into unmapped darkness, and pray they will return.''

The president spoke in nearly the same spot as Ronald Reagan did almost 17 years ago to the day when he honored the seven astronauts killed in the Challenger explosion. That memorial, too, was sun-drenched, with raw emotion and jets streaking overhead, as they did today, in a missing man formation, with one plane separating itself from the others and heading high up into the Texas sky. A group of women who had been part of the Houston training crew of the Columbia astronauts sobbed.

Today's ceremony came as investigators widened their search for debris from the shuttle. NASA officials said today that investigators had been sent to California and Arizona to check reports that remnants of the spacecraft had fallen there.

One report came from a Phoenix television station that broadcast an amateur videotape that appeared to show a piece of the shuttle breaking away from the vehicle as it streaked across the predawn sky.

Gen. Michael Kostelnik (Ret.), NASA's deputy associate administrator for the shuttle, said investigators were particularly interested in obtaining any debris from the Western states ``because that material would obviously be near the start of the event.''

In heavily religious language, Mr. Bush sought to comfort the family members of the astronauts seated in the front row.

``Some explorers do not return, and the loss settles unfairly on a few,'' he said, as the wife and sons of Cmdr. William C. McCool, the shuttle's pilot, wept.

The sorrow, the president said, is lonely, but he added: ``You are not alone. In time, you will find comfort and the grace to see you through. And in God's own time, we can pray that the day of your reunion will come.'' sv29,1if,,v29 Mr. Bush spoke against the backdrop of the Mission Control building, its flag lowered to half-staff, in a green open space of pines and oaks in a central part of the Johnson Space Center's 1,620-acre campus.

He addressed his remarks to former astronauts, including Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, as well as a large group of United States senators and a crowd of grieving employees estimated by NASA at 10,000 to 15,000.

The first words spoken at the service were in Hebrew, a tribute to Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, who had taken with him into space a drawing of the Earth as imagined by a 14-year-old in a concentration camp and a Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust. Rabbi Harold Robinson, a captain in the Chaplain Corps of the United States Navy Reserve, quoted from a Hebrew poet, then translated his words into English: ``Oh, they had one more melody, and now that melody is lost, lost forever.''

One of those from NASA, Willie B. Williams, 52, a research science manager from the Office of Space Flight, had been at the 1986 service for the Challenger astronauts.

``It's like when you fly missions, I feel like a veteran,'' Mr. Williams said. ``Because I've been here before. It's the same feeling. The emptiness is still there. The quietness is still there.''

Mr. Bush spoke for only nine minutes, but in that time singled out each of the seven astronauts. The president said that Col. Rick D. Husband of the Air Force, the flight's commander, ``was a boy of four when he first thought of being an astronaut.'' Capt. David M. Brown grew up to be ``an aviator who could land on the deck of a carrier in the middle of the night.'' Lt. Col. Michael P. Anderson told his minister ``if this thing doesn't come out right, don't worry about me, I'm just going higher.''

Cmdr. Laurel Salton Clark had ``a smile in her voice.''

Dr. Kalpana Chawla, an aerospace engineer, left India as a student and when word of the accident reached her home town, an administrator at her high school remembered, Mr. Bush said: ``She always said she wanted to reach the stars. She went there, and beyond.'''

Colonel Ramon said, Mr. Bush recalled, that ``the quiet that envelopes space makes the beauty even more powerful, and I hope that the quiet can one day spread to my country.'' Commander McCool, a former Eagle Scout, was ``a distinguished Naval officer and a fearless test pilot.''

And they nearly made it back, Mr. Bush said.

``Their mission was almost complete, and we lost them so close to home,'' he said. ``The men and women of the Columbia had journeyed more than six million miles and were minutes away from arrival and reunion.''

Before Mr. Bush's remarks, he sat in the front row with his wife, Laura, right in the middle of the families. At one point, Colonel Husband's son Matthew leaned on his mother, Laura Husband, crying. The president pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to him. Some of Mr. Bush's top aides, including his political adviser Karl Rove, also wept openly.

White House aides said that Mr. Bush had a difficult time delivering the speech, and toward the end nearly broke down.

``To the children who miss your Mom and Dad so much today, you need to know they love, and that love will always be with you,'' Mr. Bush said, his voice catching. ``They were proud of you. And you can be proud of them for the rest of your life.''

After the service, Mr. Bush and his wife spent 40 minutes in a private session with the family members.

``I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances,'' Mr. Bush told them, according to an aide. He told one woman that she was a ``strong soul,'' then left saying, ``God bless.''

The service, which lasted less than an hour, was over shortly before 1 p.m. Houston time. NASA employees and former astronauts filed out to return to home or office.

``It's the price of exploration,'' said William Fisher, an astronaut who flew on the shuttle Discovery in 1985. ``But we're Americans, for goodness sake. Everyone here is the descendant of pioneers. This is what Americans do.''